Official GOP-Cleveland ‘Riot-Preparedness’ Shopping List

Blame it on the horrific state of the global economy or post-flashmob social networking, but it seems like lately there have been riots going off left and right. Whether it’s Vancouver, London, Pakistan, Nigeria, or simply xxxxxxx everywhere, people are hitting the streets to protest, burn and loot.

Yet while Parisian fashion magazines will surely be talking about the debonair, rebellious activist look any minute now, the police tasked with quashing the mayhem just don’t get enough credit. Let’s be honest: those dudes look seriously cool. Whether it’s because they all look like spawn of Batman, that they can stand around in hailstorms of concrete and Molotov cocktails without giving a damn, or because they cruise around in futuristic trucks covered with devices made for ruining people’s day, riot police have got a pretty authentic badass thing going for them. But I had to ask: what is all that xxxxx gear they’ve got, and where can I get some? After a fair bit of digging around on personal protection websites, I think I’ve found just about everything one would need. So here it is, your riot-preparedness shopping list:

Torso protection

Whether they’re rioting against higher taxes, the shameless ripping off of society by the rich, or the end of McRib production, rioters tend to be angry with authority. And like it or not, as a police officer, you happen to be authority. So you’ve now got a whole bunch of pissed off folks who are pumped up by burning the streets down and want to kick your ass. Even worse, it’s impossible to predict how prepared the masses are, so they could be trying to mess you up with anything from rocks to filed-down toothbrushes to machine guns.

So you need some body armor. Aside from your helmeted head, your torso is the most important part of your body to protect. First you need to get a tactical vest, which is important for a) making you look rad, b) holding all of your awesome cop stuff and c) securing the actual armor plates. And because you have no idea what you’ll be dealing with, a multi-threat armor system like this one from Protech will protect you from spikes, knives and handgun rounds.

The body armor is a legitimate lifesaver, especially if things get up close and personal (which they will). But protesters love to throw all kinds of xxxx, whether it be rocks, flaming bottles, or actual shit, and you’ll be a lot happier if it wasn’t directly pelting you constantly. Plus, you need something to bang and make noise with to look even more intimidating. You need a big-ass shield.

The Paulson BS-6 weighs only four pounds and sells for less than a hundred bucks, which is truly a hell of a deal when you consider you’re getting a tool that protects your nuts from flying bricks, makes rioter-smashing easy as hell and, because it’s round, is a killer snow sled in the riot-free winter months.

But why go with just a bit of wimpy plastic? That’s not nearly powerful enough. Nova USA makes a electricfied riot shield that can be yours for just 600 bucks. Smash and zap! Even more kick ass, Nova makes a capture shield, which is convex so you can pin some snot-nosed malcontent against a wall and get your sizzle on. It’s supposed to be for prisons, but when it’s used on some entitled kid in a riot, what public defender is ever going to give a xxxx?

Baton-type Implements

Once the rioters start to get tired of throwing rocks and begin to get intimidated by how much like RoboCop you look with your riot gear on and all the shield-banging, you’ll need something to start bringing justice back to the street. You need a weapon.

Now, using a gun in a riot is a copout. Anybody can kill someone in a crowd with a gun. Plus, there are so damn many it’d take entire magazines just to discuss all of their various killing abilities. Screw guns. The real riot-control connoisseur uses the oldest beat-down weapon of all: the club. Western police these days tend to use different variations on the classic police baton, with collapsible, metal varieties seeming to be in vogue…

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